For three of the four Sundays leading into Advent I have been preaching the same sermon. It’s been enough to drum the message into my head – which I think is what has actually been the point of the whole exercise.
It’s been a good reminder this busy season that actually all the running around we do trying to make “perfection” is pointless. Certainly, over the last three weeks I’ve been reminded to stop striving so much and to just be.
M and I decorated our Christmas cookies yesterday. We left much less of a trail of destruction compared to last year and, while they’re not perfect, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out and that I got to spend some quality time with my big kid. Doing this two years in a row makes it a Christmas tradition, right?
That and they are amazingly easy to make and also pretty easy on the tastebuds too. The recipe is here for those of you who want to give it a go. It claims to be “the best” and I can testify that it’s not far off.
I used my own royal icing recipe – mainly because I don’t do shortening and also I don’t have meringue powder. There are plenty of recipes online but the one I use is pretty simple – 1 egg white to 2 cups of icing sugar and some vanilla essence if you feel like it.
Method:
Beat the egg white till foamy.
Beat in icing sugar slowly.
Add vanilla essence if using.
I added some water (around 1/8 – 1/4 cup) to get a more runny texture for the star cookies. Just go with your gut, you can’t really go wrong with this one.
I’m also swearing by silicon baking sheets this year. I got one for the first time this year (like a proper one) and the difference it’s made to my cookies is pronounced. They are even and this year’s Christmas cookies didn’t spread at all. There was minimal spread last year, but it was enough to give things rounded edges on the corners. AliExpress is my new go-to for baking goods. I don’t know why I didn’t think of them sooner.
We did Christmas with my family this afternoon (hence the unwrapped chaos surrounding us). We’re two Christmas functions down already and I don’t think I’ve been hungry for the last 36 hours.
If you look to the far right in the photo above, you’ll see that my parents got S her own pink bluetooth speaker for Christmas. She is in love. It’s like her own personal little boom box that she carries around with her. It’s possibly the cutest thing I’ve seen. That and her with the baby doll her big brother chose for her.
Ah, who am I kidding, she’s cute 98% of the time – the other 2% is her screeching at me for something or screaming in the middle of the night until she gets what she wants.
Merry Christmas everyone, may it be full of the things we are thankful for – the people we love, good food, laughter and good friends.
Canterbury Tales 